


The Whole, and the Sum of Its Parts

by madame_faust



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Own Voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: In a boarded up wall in a flat on the Rue de Rivoli lies an unpublished manuscript, a series of notes taken by a Persian criminologist living in Paris. The tentative title - 'The Strange Affair of the Phantom of the Opera.'(Or, ALW-inspired Pharoga.)
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera/The Persian
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	The Whole, and the Sum of Its Parts

**Author's Note:**

> This particularly take on the Phantom is based entirely on Ethan Freeman's portrayal in his West End run in the mid-90s.

Ever since the body of the stagehand had interrupted the third-act ballet, Farzan made a professional study of the goings-on at the Paris Opera. The authorities had conducted only a cursory examination of the scene - at the insistence of the management. Mssrs. Firmin and Andre insisted that the shocking, public event was nothing more or less sinister than an unfortunate accident - ditto the chandelier. There were certainly far more pressing matters in the capital city that deserved the officers attention, they were sure, they remarked as they attempted to shoo him out of their office.

Farzan refused to go and doubtlessly disturbed them when he asked to see the rope. Unwound from the neck of the stagehand and already discarded in a dustbin, it had taken a while to unearth, the evidence disturbed almost beyond usefulness. Nevertheless, Farzan did not even need his spectacles to detect, far from the tangle of ropes stumbled into by an irresponsible drunkard with tragic results, the rope had been neatly twisted into a noose. 

Though his office dropped the matter, a slender file that quickly began gathering dust, Farzan kept prying. A criminologist of some small renown, there was something about the case which niggled at him. The rumors of a ghost, which circulated throughout the opera house, despite the best attempts of the management to quash them. In his digging, Farzan discovered a complaint filed by a performer, Carlotta Giudicelli, about harassing notes and acts of violence against her person. It had been dismissed when the investigating officer was informed, again by that same management, that the complaint was nothing more than a publicity stunt by an overwrought actress, hungry for publicity. 

A brief article in Le Petit Journal piqued his interest. It detailed Giudicelli's resignation and the unexpectedly triumphant debut of a young Swedish soprano, the daughter of a moderately successful violinist, who subsequently disappeared from her dressing room, an event which somehow linked her to the younger brother of the Comte de Chagny. There was no mention of a ghost, but the name of 'Giudicelli' caught his eye. The date was an almost exact match for the complaint she filed with authorities. 

The complaints. The strangling of the stage-hand. The persistent rumors of a ghost, heard through the walls, which lived beneath the floors held a strange fascination for Farzan. Though he was respected among his peers in law enforcement, he had yet to make a name for himself internationally in the field of psychology. Not an alienist, not a researcher in a laboratory setting and, no, not a policeman, not quite, Farzan was hungry for some public acknowledgement. And this mystery at the Opera House contained just enough salacious edge to form a perfect case study.

If, indeed, there was a case to study. For some months, he despaired. There were no notes. No news of other "accidents." Even the abduction of the Swedish soprano was now confirmed to be an entirely romantic attachment to the Vicomte. 

Until the annual Masquerade. Farzan attended, conspicuous in his evening suit and simple black mask amid the whirl of color and paste gems which glittered under the candlelight. And then he saw him. His Phantom.

A whirl of blood-red brocade, a bone-white mask with a dangling silver veil. At first, the crowd seemed transfixed, mesmerized by the figure, oddly compelling, the only thing about it which was recognizably human being its large, white, spider-like hands. 

The creature - the Phantom - the man moved with an uncanny precision, slowly, then suddenly it would lash out like an asp, coiled to strike. The soprano was his target. In the ensuing chaos after the Phantom made his demands known and disappeared in a puff of smoke, Farzan moved through the panicking crush and picked up the thin, coiled silver chain left behind on the floor - still warm from the skin of the soprano's neck. And as the crowd of revelers fled the scene in horror, Farzan followed his nose and the distinct smell of sulfur, removing his mask and replacing his glasses.

The humidity of the grand staircase fogged his spectacles in his pocket, dimming his sight; the rest of the Opera was dark and eerily quiet. The metal was still warm in Farzan's hand and he was starting to think his search was all for naught - when he heard it. The scrape of shoe-leather upon marble. And then an icy cold hand curled around his throat.

Inelegantly, Farzan clawed at; a large hand, pressing on his windpipe, then a sickly sweet voice in his ear; he felt the scrape of moulded papier-mache at his cheek and knew that he had not found his quarry; the hunter had become the hunted.

"Does the Inspector have a name?" the voice asked, deceptively warm and kindly; the gently sardonic tone of a gentleman on the receiving end of a botched introduction. 

The pressure on his neck eased; it seemed the question was in earnest.

"Not- not an inspector," Farzan wheezed. "A doctor."

A high cackled escaped the lips behind the mask; a quick, mirthless laugh, quickly stifled. 

"Ah!" the voice replied, taking on a sing-song quality which Farzan did not like. "And what kindly patron called for a doctor, hmm? Quite unnecessary I assure you - you see, I am in excellent health!" 

The darkness closing in on Farzan's vision had nothing to do with the dim lights around him; stars glittered on the edge of his vision and he felt cold sweat trickling down his bloodless face. Lips numb and tingling he tried to speak again. 

"The mind," he wheezed. "I am a doctor...of the mind."

His throat was released. He was spun round and looked upon the face and figure that had so captivated him upon the stairs. Le Mort Rouge, more extravagant than the American Poe's wildest imagining. The silver veil glittered in the low light, but what caught Farzan's attention were two asymetrical dots of light beyond the eyeholes of the mask, shining dimly, like a cat's eyes.

The mechanical jaw of the mask ground against itself. The breathing of the figure before him took on a frenzied quality as a moan issued from behind the mask's fleshless white teeth. Long, vise-like fingers spasmed upon Farzan's shoulders, resulting in a tremor which thundered through the tassled, plumed body. 

The fingers trailed up his shoulders, past his neck to stroke the skin of his face, clammy and damp with perspiration. His spectacles were removed and the whole blurred like a painting of Monsieur Monet's. 

"It would be a waste," Le Mort Rouge sighed - it might have been called a blissful sigh. Those fingers - icy cold upon Farzan's cheek - splayed and convulsed. The mask came close, as though the exposed teeth would bite down and tear at his flesh, but there was only a deep inhale of breath and another faint moan. "A pity..."

A flash of light. A whiff of sulfur. And Farzan was alone in the darkness.

* * *

The ballet mistress knew something of it. For she confronted him one day and demanded to know, what he meant, poking about the place and frightening the little dancers out of their wits.

Her black eyes were keen and searching and, quite without meaning to, Farzan brought a hand to his chest. It was not the memory of the night he was nearly suffocated that brought it on; it seemed that her eyes could penetrate to look through his wool suit and waistcoat to the silver chain he'd carefully mended that he wore about his neck.

It was evidence, was it not? Evidence that the Opera Ghost existed. He had seen him, spoken with him, _touched_ him. Well, been touched by him. The little chain was his proof of the encounter, a tangible reminder of what transpired following the Masquerade. That, and his missing spectacles. He had a new pair made - gold-rimmed. They glittered in candlelight and reminded him of those strange eyes with their dim glow.

Farzan's heart pounded beneath his hand, but his voice was steady as he replied that he was investigating a complaint which had been submitted six months previous. Of threatening notes and violent pranks. A ghost who collected a salary was no ghost at all.

The ballet mistress drew back, hands tightening on the stick she carried. 

"Do not meddle in matters which do not concern you," she said, an ominous note of warning in her voice. "Joseph Buquet is proof enough to the folly of that."

The name was familiar, but Farzan could not immediately place it - ah! But of course. The stage hand. Who tripped and fell and accidentally found a neatly tied noose around his neck.

"What do you know if it, Madame?" he asked and this time it was the woman's turn to put her hand to her throat. "The managers were quite firm upon that point. It was an _accident_. Or was it?"

It would be an insult to the woman's dignity to imply that she fled after Farzan's inquiry. But she did quit the scene in haste, sparing him no backwards glance.

However, when the Vicomte de Chagny summoned an armed guard to attend the premiere of a new opera by an anonymous composer, it seemed that Madame rethought her previous stance on meddling. Swathed in her customary black, but with the addition of a veil, she presented herself at the police offices in the city. She said not a word of the purpose of her visit to anyone, only that she must see the foreign man in the spectacles. 

She was shown to his office, but spoke not a word. Instead of her customary cane, she carried a sheaf of papers and dropped them unceremoniously upon his desk. All of Farzan's questions went unanswered; she left just as quickly as she had come.

The papers were newspaper clippings, dating ten years back. One was a full-color illustration, of a dancing skeleton playing the violin. Over top was a heading: _LE MORT VIVANT_. 

An advertisement for a circus. This Mort Vivant was the headlining attraction, a magician, musician, and evidently an architect of some renown: HE CONSTRUCTED FOR THE SHAH OF PERSIA A MAZE OF MIRRORS TO LURE MORE SOULS TO HIS UNHOLY COURT OF THE DAMNED.

Farzan smiled faintly at that; though he was not himself in any way connected with the royal court, he was sure that if a cadaverous spectre created such a thing, he would have heard about it.

He sat back in his chair, considering. A circus freak, hiding a deformed form and equally deformed mind behind a mask. A technician of some skill, used to conjuring tricks. And a lot of highly strung theatrical types who lived their lives in a world of make-believe. A disastrous combination.

Farzan stared at the image, the skeleton's face which was an exact match for the mask worn by Le Mort Rouge at the Masquerade. Those skeleton claws sawing away at the violin in a perpetual Danse Macabre. And he felt the ghostly imprint of ice-cold fingertips on his jaw.

When Don Juan Triumphant was brought to life upon the stage, Farzan attended (in the upper stalls, just in case the chandelier loosed itself from its moorings). It was an alarming deviation of Don Giovanni. Derivative in the extreme, the characters playacting such overwrought heights of passion and virtue that it seemed like a parody or a pantomime. But there was no gentle mockery here. The dark, discordant music rang with a sincerity that was pitifully earnest even as the characters paraded around the stage in red and black and wrang their hearts out singing of unfulfilled desire.

The one bright spot was Aminta - played by the Swedish girl. Her voice pierced through the chaotic melodrama and rang out, pure and bright, the one clean, melodic note in an atonal mess. And yet it seemed she too would be sullied as Don Juan cloaked himself and laid in wait for his prey. Like a snake or a scorpion, poised to strike.

And yet - Farzan sat upright and stared, begging to borrow a fellow audience member's opera glasses. Much of the crowd departed, put off by the music, repulsed by the libretto, disappointed there was no ballet. Squinting at the stage he stared and stared, certain that the lead tenor had been replaced. He knew that voice. He knew those hands. 

The depleted crowd meant it was simplicity itself to leave his seat, gain access to the backstage and follow the small mob which formed to go down below into the depths after the infamous Ghost - who, everyone finally seemed to grasp - was only a man.

Farzan could have killed them all. They stampeded through a cunningly built underground house, tearing music asunder, reducing an organ to so much rubble. The things he might have learned, the study he might have made of the habitat of such a creature! Gone. All gone. Ground glass and ashes around him. And a white mask, clutched in the hands of a little ballerina.

And yet justice was not served. The murderer was not found, the criminal not brought to justice. Even the Vicomte and the soprano were gone. Perhaps he had killed them too. Perhaps he had killed them and himself and Farzan would never have the answers he sought.

It was the obsessive in him that bade him stay after the rest of the crowd departed, sifting through the destruction, desperate for something that might complete his picture of what this man was, how his disordered mind functioned. 

And perhaps to answer a more personal question: why did Farzan himself continue to wear that silver chain around his neck?

His diligence paid off. A creaking sound revealed a hidden trap door. Farzan secreted himself behind the ruins of the pipe organ and waited. 

A white, claw-like hand emerged from the floor. Slithering up like a serpent, the arm followed. A tattered evening suit. And a nearly-bald head with wild strands of dark hair - ah! He turned. And in the light of a guttering fire, Farzan saw the face clearly.

It was a protruding mess of bone, flesh, and muscle, warped and twisted, barely suggestive of a human face...but not all of it. Half of it was a man's face, an ordinary man's face with a strong jaw, a high elegant cheekbone and a smooth cranium, suggesting intelligence.

Beauty and deformity. Intelligence and madness. Farzan wished to place him under a microscope, to badger him with questions, to know him, inside and out. 

He was discovered. That might have been his goal all along. For a supposed expert in the human mind, Farzan was having a damnable time making sense of his own thoughts.

"Oh," that voice, which rang out so powerfully from the stage was quiet now. Subdued and hoarse. The unblemished side of his face was red and swollen. He had been crying - sobbing, probably. "It's you."

"Yes," Farzan replied. The Ghost - the murderer...the _man_ , did not seem surprised to see him. He did not ask Farzan to make an account of himself. He simply stared, shoulders hunched, looking like a marionette which had its strings cut. 

Farzan cleared his throat. If the Opera Ghost - Le Mort Vivant - Le Mort Rouge - or Don Juan, whoever he fancied himself to be, would not speak, then he would.

"They'll be back," he replied, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "They've gone for now, but they'll be back. With the authorities."

The Ghost cocked his hideous head at Farzan and squinted at him. His eyes glittered all the more brightly from his tears. "Are you not also an authority?"

Farzan shook his head. "I am a doctor."

"Yes," the Ghost replied simply. "So you said."

Approaching cautiously, hands raised, palms outward, Farzan drew close. With his left hand held up in surrender, he reached into his shirt and tugged; the repaired chain broke and the thin links twisted around his fingers. Staring steadily at the Opera Ghost in all his ghoulishness, he held the chain before him. 

The Ghost unfurled one hand with a decaying kind of elegance. The chain fell into his open palm, nestled among bright red scores; places his nails had bit into when his fist was tightly clenched. The Ghost stared at Farzan with eyes that did not understand.

"Come with me," Farzan asked, knowing he might be signing his own writ of execution if he did so, but knowing he would live no kind of life if he did not satisfy his curiosity and _know_ this man. Inside and out. "To my home. No one will find you."

"Your fears are far behind you..." the Ghost said. It was not a real reply. It was like a quotation. Or an echo.

Then his lips curled. The thin, human side and the bloated, malformed side as one. It as a fascinating, disgusting approximation of a human smile. One which Farzan returned.

"Call your coach," the Ghost said, still grinning his rictus grin. "And fine horses all. I'll follow where you lead. Doctor of the Mind."


End file.
